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• root-and-branch
  root-and-branch

  adjective

  on a large scale or without discrimination; wholesale
• root and branch
  root and branch

  Utterly, completely, as in The company has been transformed root and branch by the new management. Alluding to both the underground and aboveground parts of a tree, this idiom was first recorded in 1640.

root-and-branch

British  

adjective

1. on a large scale or without discrimination; wholesale

   root-and-branch reforms

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adverb

1. entirely; completely; utterly

   Brazil needs reform root and branch

root and branch Idioms  

1. Utterly, completely, as in The company has been transformed root and branch by the new management. Alluding to both the underground and aboveground parts of a tree, this idiom was first recorded in 1640.

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Example Sentences

He believes the regulatory system needs a "root and branch review".

From BBC • Feb. 25, 2025

Tory shadow finance minister Peter Fox also called for a "root and branch review so that taxpayers' money is well-spent and efficiently allocated".

From BBC • Dec. 9, 2024

Not at his attempts to wreak personal vengeance, reconstitute Washington root and branch, or engineer a lasting partisan realignment.

From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 1, 2024

A new government was elected in July, of course, and immediately initiated a root and branch review of UK defence needs and spending.

From BBC • Aug. 16, 2024

But the Specters had found their target, too, and they pressed in through the snagging tangle of bush and briar and root and branch, meeting no more resistance than smoke.

From "The Amber Spyglass" by Philip Pullman